


Just One Man

by bagog



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 06:17:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 9,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14889222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bagog/pseuds/bagog
Summary: John Shepard is a man defined by his choices, both in his campaign and with the love of his life. From his earliest days and into distant memory, this tells the story of Commander Shepard in eleven vignettes: Paragon, Renegade, Spacer, Colonist, Earthborn, Soldier, Adept, Infiltrator, Engineer, Sentinel, and Vanguard. I hope no matter who your Shepard is, they'd be proud to share their designation with these.





	1. Paragon

**Author's Note:**

> These were originally written for N7 Month, 2015 over on tumblr. The vignettes are thematically tied together, though, because I basically live and die for themes. I've arranged them in such a way that I think suggests a complete whole, but feel free to read anything out of sequence or on its own.
> 
> The Summary is dreadful, and if you have a better one, PLEASE let me know, and I'll happily credit you!

_Admiral Bartell’s annual opening address to entering N7 class, 2231_

Do not be like Shepard.

This is the most important lesson you’ll learn, here at the Villa. For those of you who manage to pass through N7 training, the tactics and diplomacy you learn here will save your life. This little unspoken rule, the ‘Don’t Be Like Shepard’ rule, will save more lives than just your own.

We need to get a few things straight about Shepard before going on:

Commander Shepard was a hero, he was one of the finest soldiers the human race is ever likely to see. But you’ve all had history in Primary school, and you ought to know by now that when Commander Shepard became the first human Spectre, the galaxy was already in one of the tensest political situations imaginable—and _then_ the war broke out! This cluster-fuck of a situation allowed Shepard to make decisions (most of us wouldn’t dream of making) with relatively _few_ repercussions.

Am I asking you to think about the political climate of the galaxy before you raise your rifle? No. Of course not. Shepard sure as hell didn’t.

Shepard was surrounded by idealists—Admiral Anderson, a hero of this program in his own right—sponsored his admission to the Spectre program. Admiral Anderson was an idealist on the cutting edge of Earth-Council relations. Admiral Kaidan Alenko, whose wing you’re sitting in, for chrissakes. You just have to read the plaque on the wall to know what kind of an idealist _that_ old war hero was—even _before_ he and Shepard were married. Urdnot Wrex, maybe the _only_ krogan idealist the galaxy’s ever going to see, rebuilt the krogan almost single-handedly. Admiral Hackett of the Fifth Fleet. These are names we _all_ know.

Shepard found himself the most important soldier in a galaxy in turmoil, and was packed in on every side with idealists. Let be very clear, soldiers: _you are_ not _surrounded by idealists._ Your commanding officers are not idealists. Your teachers are not idealists. Your politicians are not idealists. You should not be an idealist.

Let’s review some of the decision Commander Shepard made during that three-year run. Let’s learn what _not_ to do.

In 2183, Commander Shepard released a rachni queen—able to repopulate a species that had threatened to wipe out all life in the galaxy a few thousand years before. According to his report, he did this because his conscience couldn’t brook genocide.

Later that same year, Shepard called in the Alliance fleet in defense of the Destiny Ascension in rogue Spectre Saren Arterius’ attack on the Citadel. Rather than protect the entire Citadel, and its colossal population, Shepard risked the entire station in order that the fleet could save the Citadel Council attempting to escape aboard the asari flagship. His records here are vaguer, saying humanity ‘needed to find its place in the universe’.

In 2185, Shepard—at that time working with the former Alliance black-ops splinter-cell Cerberus—reprogrammed a large section of the geth, a hostile, semi-sentient synthetic species at that time, instead of destroying them and winning a decisive victory against one of the greatest threats to peace the Alliance had ever faced. He records the incident in his logs, but does not offer rationale.

By 2186, lo and behold, he discovers the Reapers have used the last rachni queen which he himself released to create soldiers which rampaged across the galaxy. Once _again_ , he let the queen go instead of killing her. We can only assume his motivations are the same as previously, as no record exists of this encounter from Shepard himself.

Mere weeks later, in the quarian conflict to retake their homeworld, he chose to let one of the geth upload _Reaper Code_ into the synthetic hive-mind to make them _fully_ sentient—in defiance of galactic law and with Reapers breathing down our necks, no less—in a move which would have surely allowed them to crush the quarian fleet, and millions of men, women, and children. A report from Admiral Alenko from around that time records: “He must have been confident he could talk them down.”

Now I know what you’re thinking, soldiers. All those things worked out, didn’t they? He _did_ talk both sides down, and the quarians are vital allies to this day. He _did_ save the rachni and they are vital allies to this day. Hell, you could say the same about the krogan themselves, in a similar incident. Shepard _did_ win us a place on the Council. On and on.

I won’t try to convince you that Shepard was merely lucky his personal morality just _happened_ to yield him astounding results, and it is not useful to speculate about what might’ve happened.

The thing to take away is this:

Today, we would rather have an a-moral, loose cannon than another N7 like Shepard in our ranks. Shepard was the sort of man who, when presented with a choice between ‘A’ or ‘B’ would pick ‘2’. It’s not just that he chose the ‘moral’ or ‘right’ option, he chose the option that didn’t make any goddamn sense. The option that shouldn’t have worked and should have failed the mission. I pray to a fucking pantheon of deities every night that none of my marines will be faced with the choices Shepard was faced with. But I can’t control that.

All I can do is say: Don’t be like Shepard. Don’t be like Shepard.


	2. Pre-War: Soldier

2177 - SSV Canberra

“Johnny!” Nickles called across the room when Shepard entered, waving him over to the poker table. Shepard shook his head, but headed over and the three marines seated made room for him at the table.

“You keep calling Shepard that, Nickles,” Murphy shook her head, “You’re gonna get yourself hurt.

“Meh, you love it, don’t you, Johnny?”

“If it took him 12 weeks to even _tell_ you his first name, he probably doesn’t like being called it, idiot.”

“Are you gonna deal me in or what?” Shepard kept the smirk on his face just this side of menacing: couldn’t let a good intro like that from Murphy go to waste.

Across the table, Odimgbe shuffled her set of old playing cards and started dealing—as soon as she had dealt a _third_ card to each of the seated marines, Nickles groaned.

“This isn’t poker is it?”

“Pinochle,” Odimgbe said softly.

“Again?” Murphy frowned, but gathered her cards up.

“Now that Shepard’s here, we can play proper partners,” Odimgbe gave Shepard the briefest smile, “I like pinochle and I like playing partners and they are my cards. So just shut the hell up and don’t you dare leave.”

“But you get to be Shepard’s partner! I get stuck with Nickles!”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“You’re a human disaster, Nickles.”

“Can you believe this, Johnny?” Nickles slapped Shepard on the arm, “This lady thinks I ain’t a good _partner_.”

“Don’t get coy, Nickles,” Murphy slid back in her chair and reclined her legs on Shepard’s knees, “Otherwise I’ll knock your head off before Shepard loses his patience. As if that’s even possible.”

Nickles blew her a kiss. She flipped him off. Everyone laughed except Odimgbe, who seemed content to watch the two bicker with only a graceful smile.

“I can only play a few hands,” Shepard chimed in, clearing his throat. “I should turn in before long. Mission tomorrow.”

It was comfortable to let his friends think that he’d always been stoic, even-tempered, and reserved. But really, since graduating the N7 program, he’d felt like a different person. He had enlisted with the navy specifically to give his life some purpose, to give himself a chance to do some good. Since the Villa, he’d felt rebuilt, in a sense. As if his instructors had pulled out John Shepard and stuffed someone different in his skin.

A look of genuine disappointment flashed across Nickles face—but just as quickly it was gone, and he was summoning up his characteristic bravado again. Shepard could see it rising up his spine before he even opened his mouth to speak.

“Tomorrow? C’mon, Johnny. You know the drill: Alliance shows up, marines drop in, look like heroes for the colonists, hear the same story about how a sandstorm wiped out the transmitter, back to the ship.”

“Your tax dollars at work,” Murphy stretched.

“Still,” Shepard smiled impassively.

“He can go whenever he wants to,” Odimgbe said quietly looking between her cards and Shepard’s face with the ghost of a smile.

Nickles rolled his eyes, but picked up his cards. The conversation went all over—new vids coming out, shore leave plans. It was nothing like the Villa had been, where ever conversation was tinged with the private worry of washing out or worse. Terse imitations of the kinds of conversation people _should_ be having around a poker table at night, no one willing to admit how close to broken they ended each day. But now? 16 hours before a drop onto one of the most remote colony worlds in the Alliance to investigate why the pioneer team went dark, and these marines were talking about vids, junk food, and childhood sweethearts.

After three hands, Shepard excused himself to go to bed. Before Murphy could even move her legs to let him up, Nickles had taken wrist with surprising care, looked him in the eye.

“Johnny…. Stay, okay?”

So he did. Three more hands. Then three more hands after that. And, eventually, the conversation returned to the mission.

“If it were up to me,” Nickles yawned, placing his bid, “we wouldn’t send a whole team every time some colony gets their radio knocked out.”

“You idiot,” Murphy scoffed, “Thank god you’re not the one making the call! Alliance sends in the cavalry to send a message: even if the smallest colony goes dark, we’ll be there _quick_ , and we’ll bring hell!”

“Yeah, and that’s fine.” Nickles rolled his eyes, Shepard felt his boot tap against his under the table. “I didn’t sign on to make the hard choices, dammit.”

“Why did you?” It was the first time all evening Odimgbe had been the one _asking_ a question.

“Well… I…” Nickles sniffed. “I guess I needed something to do. That’s why I enlisted. But I’m a good soldier, first time I’ve ever really been good at anything.” He didn’t seem to have the courage to meet the eyes of the table, but finally he did look up at Shepard, eyes searching.

“Touching,” Murphy snarked—though not as acidly as she might have. “Well, the Alliance always needs good canon fodder.”

“And I’m happy to volunteer!” Nickles laughed. “I hate those big choices. Count me out. Gimme a gun, point me in the direction of the enemy, lemme loose. What about you, Johnny?”

Shepard blinked.

“…choices?”

“No,” Nickles laughed, a warmer tone than before he’d convinced Shepard to stay for six more hands, “Why’d you enlist?”

Needed a way to drown out his past. Wanted to give his life some kind of purpose. Bored. Lonely. Idealistic by turns. He didn’t know.

“Needed to serve.” He knew it was so cliché that no one would say it unless they were genuine about it. “As for the ‘tough choices,’” He grinned. “Gimme a gun, point me at the enemy…”

Nickles crowed with laughter and clapped Shepard on the shoulder. Even Odimgbe laughed, though more from the sound of Nickles guffaw than anything.

“Don’t encourage him, Shepard,” Murphy rolled her eyes, “Or you’ll never get him to stop calling you ‘Johnny.’”

“Y’know what?” Shepard grinned, “I actually don’t mind so much.”

Shepard played one more hand before finally excusing himself for bed. His left leg had fallen asleep after having Murphy’s boot heel pressing on his thigh all evening, and so he moved slowly down the corridor.

“Hey, Johnny!” Nickles hurried up, whisper-yelling before Shepard could step into the lift. He seemed unsure on his feet, standing close, couldn’t quite meet Shepard’s eye.

“What’s up, Nickles?”

“Just…” Nickles dug his fingers into his temple and licked his lips. His eyes were wide and vulnerable when he finally looked up from his boots. The eye contact seemed to sap his courage, “You can… you can call my Tim, if you want. I mean… or I can _stop_ calling you Johnny…”

“What if I call you ‘Timmy?’” Shepard gave him a smirk, but Nickles’ neck turned pink at the mention.

“Heh, you… uh… you asshole,” he cleared his throat. “But maybe that’s fair. Anyway, I guess…” He stepped closer, put a hand gently on Shepard’s arm. “There was a lot more to why you joined up than what you were saying in there and I don’t need to know or anything, but I wanted to say ‘thanks’ for saying as much as you did. All that stuff about ‘choices’ seemed like it hit a nerve.”

It was as if he couldn’t look away from Shepard’s eyes.

“Thanks, Nickles.”

Nickles’ shoulders fell a little at hearing his surname.

“I just wanted you to know that… I like being a soldier, and I think I’m good at it. And it’s been… good to be around other good soldiers. Been good to be around…” he swallowed, “You.”

“I appreciate that.”

Nickles’ shoulders slumped a little more. His body tipped just a little closer to Shepard’s, hand running up John’s arm slowly.

“Yeah, okay.” He stepped backed. “Just, remember that even if guys like us aren’t making the big who-lives-who-dies decisions… doesn’t mean we can’t make personal choices, okay, Johnny?”

Shepard was about to ask what he meant, but he was gone down the corridor.


	3. Start of War: Adept

_“I will destroy you._ ”

Shepard had heard it often enough. Biotic extremists, krogan terrorists, Ceberus goons, asari commandos. Shepard spent more time thinking about how he was going to die than how he was going to live when the mission was said and done. Of all the enemies he’d seen coming, of all the things he thought he’d hear before the worst happened, he never expected Dr. Eva Core—a mech, charred in the blaze of a crashed shuttle. He never thought the last thing he ever heard would not be a threat, but merely a question:

“Orders?”

Then she was smashing Kaidan against the side of the shuttle, and the whole world felt like it was on fire.

“ _No, Shepard! Think with your biotics, not your gun! So much to unlearn! Pull from the Source! Shout! Shout!”_

When he had been training his biotics, plenty of the other adepts had a _kiai_ to go along with their bodily mnemonics. A verbal queue that focused their power out from ‘the Source’ in the world. The marines used them too, and by the time he was getting advanced biotics training, he had nearly had his fill of buttstroking his sparring partner and grunting “KILL!” with each jab, each punch, each kick.

 _“The power of the biotic on the battlefield is mental in all ways,_ ” his teacher, an asari matriarch that Shepard was more convinced had been a matron at best. “ _You want your enemy terrified of you before you ever advance on the battlefield. You want your enemy running away from the mere idea of you_.”

In Shepard’s experience, the rest of the galaxy seemed to hold fast to this rule. Everywhere he went, he met people shaking in their boots over this or that commando or this or that biotic Lieutenant who could ‘flay your skin off’ with her mind or ‘rip you in half’ with his brain.

“ _I will destroy you!”_

Had it been a _kiai_? A threat designed to stun him away? He had responded according to his military training each time—not his biotic training—and taken cover, peeking out and picking off the would-be attacker. The brutal biotic opponents he faced never turned out to be much of a challenge, a well placed lift or a carefully timed singularity and they were ripe for the taking. Ever since biotic training it had been the same. And yet he had never had a chance for it to let it go to his head: the ‘matriarch’ always scored him low because he wasn’t “ _feeling the world_ ” with his biotics. He wasn’t reaching out from the Source.

Since the Normandy, he’d had other, better attuned biotics at his side. Samara lived with her biotics in a way that would have put his teacher to shame. And Kaidan.

Shepard had never faced persecution like Kaidan had. By the time he was at the Villa training his biotics, the most visceral of the biotic hatred had died down. Kaidan had taken biotics into his identity in a way Shepard never was going to be able to. He had always wanted to ask Kaidan what _he_ thought of the ‘Source’ and ‘reaching out.’ Quiet Kaidan had never used a _kiai_ to rip his enemies apart.

It had felt good, on Mars, to watch and follow Kaidan’s biotics. Let Kaidan do the thinking for him. If Kaidan slung a warp field, Shepard could detonate it. Kaidan was ‘reaching out’ and all Shepard had to do was answer. He should have chosen Kaidan when he had the chance. But for now, meanwhile, things felt right, again.

And now, Shepard’s Source was lying on the ground, armor cracked, probably dead. And Shepard wished he could reach out and feel if the man he relied on was still alive. And the quiet monster who killed his quiet center was rushing at him through the flames. He should have torn her to pieces with a singularity… but his body was already acting on instinct.

He raised his pistol.


	4. Mid-War: Vanguard

Shepard limped from the lift and into his cabin and down the stairs—one at a time—and over to his wardrobe.

“What’re you thinking about, John?” Kaidan asked from his bed.

Lots of things. His legs trembled, his mind raced. For the first time, he wondered if his body would be able to finish this war.

Vanguards were on the front line, single-minded—protect the rest of the team, and the best defense was the best offense. At the Villa, the pilot program for biotic vanguards used overclocked amps to test if the L3 implants were capable of manifesting a biotic charge. The handful who had mastered the technique were dead, now, except for Shepard. And just as well: since the L5X, they had become obsolete. Shepard knew they would hate that.

It had been a competition every day, drilled into them every moment: fast and strong. Of course they were both, but among themselves, any N7 candidate could tell you exactly who was the _strongest_ and who was the _fastest_. And no one could agree.

Sure, the arguments raged around the bar after a few drinks: it was better to be faster because you could get out in front of the line and protect them from harm, or was it better to hit harder and cripple them for the firing line? That was the most important choice, back then—did you want to be the fastest, or the strongest?

Shepard stooped, bending against the ache in his joints to untie his boots. After every mission, it was the same routine. The same walk out of the lift, boots off, uniform shirt off, pants off. Fold each piece, crawl into bed.

And Shepard _wasn’t_ fast out of the lift. His hands trembled as he undressed.

But the routine blurred every mission together, the quick recon drops and the fall of the asari homeworld were all the same up here. He slid out of his shirt, reviewing his scars. Shepard was covered in them—battering into enemy after enemy for years had left his body gnarled and his skin a patchwork of white marks. He didn’t know where all the scars were from, anymore. Each was someone he had defended, but now they all blended together as sure as his post-mission routine.

But he was doing his job. You didn’t make _choices_ on the battle-field—you got out in the front of the line, you made yourself a bullet that could kill the enemy before they could kill anyone in your squad. Simple. The time for choices was in training, whether you would be fast or strong. Knowing you couldn’t be both…

Not fast enough to rescue Jenkins, years ago. Not strong enough to save Earth. Not fast enough to convince the Council in time to prepare. Not strong enough to negotiate the alliances he needed.

How could he possibly defend anyone? He was obsolete.

Shepard had always worked his body to exhaustion, then fallen asleep at bullet speed. Tonight, he limped to bed and into Kaidan’s arms. Tonight was soft hands over all those interchangeable scars. He couldn’t stop trying to defend people—to get out in front of the line. Even with his lover holding him tight, shushing his groans and trembling, _Kaidan_ was the one that had to be protected. Shepard didn’t matter, only Kaidan…

But again, he was obsolete. Kaidan was a man like a rock in a river, the narrative of his life neatly contained. But holding Shepard helped Kaidan, so Shepard allowed himself to be held, to be shushed, to be told “it’s gonna be alright.”

He lay awake in Kaidan’s arms for an hour, and he felt strong as he fell asleep.

For some reason.


	5. Renegade

_An excerpt from the rough draft of_ “I’ll Be There When You Need Me: The Official Autobiography of Diana Allers, the Journalist Who Defined a Generation.”

Really, I could write a whole book about Commander Shepard, and I’ve had plenty of offers over the years. But, I’ve gotten to the point where publishers can’t push me around anymore, and I’ve never done _anything_ for the money. So why haven’t I?

Truth is, when I embedded myself on the Normandy, it wasn’t _for_ Shepard. You have to remember that, at the time, he was still a disgraced ex-soldier who had only missed being convicted of war crimes and executed because the Reapers showed up. He was controversial, he was mesmerizing, he was infamous—but there was a war on, and that’s _not_ the sort of man you want to be around, and probably _not_ the face you want broadcast by tightbeam every night.

No, I was there for the Normandy. She was going to be in the thick of it, no matter what sort of madman was calling the shots. The fact that I got so close to Shepard is more the circumstances of things than any wheedling on my part.

Okay, the part you’re waiting for: did I have sex with Shepard? Yeah, I did. And that’s the last you’ll hear about that—and don’t worry, my wife knows _all_ the details. But I’ve thought about it, all those conversations with Shepard, and really there’s only one I want to highlight.

Everybody’s seen the man, but what you can’t get from the vids is just how eerie those glowing scars are on his face. You can kind of lose yourself in them. it’s not just that they’re orange, glowing scars, it’s the texture. Big, cracked, dead skin—they feel like plaster when you touch them. And they’re wide. Wide enough where your finger could just dip inside while you’re stroking his face. Those orange scars are burning hot, they make your fingers tingle, feels like the heat’s going to burn a hole through you when he has his face pressed to your chest. Makes you check the inside of your thighs for burns.

It’s worth noting about the scars because Shepard’s quarters—where we conducted all of our interviews—was always kept dark. The glow of an empty fishtank was the only thing to convince you that you weren’t interviewing two glowing red eyes in a smoldering ember.

Once, when the interview was over, he poured me a drink. Down on the couch, it was even darker.

“Suppose we can talk off the record, a little bit?” He asked, and I knew where this was going. Still, I told him one tumble with Commander Shepard was enough for me. He insisted that wasn’t what he had in mind.

“Would’ve thought you’d be asking me more about myself, once in a while,” he said. I get asked a lot if those eyes scare me. They don’t, never did. Shepard was dangerous, and the eyes drove home the message—honestly, I was just glad that for the first time in my life, the danger _looked_ appropriately dangerous.

“It’s a matter of public record at this point, Shepard.”

“So it’s just about the facts, then?”

“I’m writing news, not a puff-piece.”

“Thought you’d want to collect some anecdotes for a book, someday.”

“ _If_ I write a book about you, Shepard, I’ll make sure to include plenty of our pillowtalk for the readers. I bet they’d love to hear what Commander Shepard has to say in bed.”

“Maybe I’ll still be around to read it.”

The thing about being embedded on a ship is you’re on all the time. You’re the journalist when you’re broadcasting and you’re the journalist in the Mess Hall. Everything you say is an interview waiting to happen, everything you overhear is ‘about to be frontpage news’. It’s tiring, it wears you down, it remakes you, in a lot of ways. You find any way you can to blow off steam. Probably the reason I ended up marrying someone _from_ that ship—after a while, nobody else understands.

“You’ve got a reputation for survival,” I was being careful with how I teased, tonight. “And for making sure anyone who crosses you _doesn’t_.”

“’Crosses me?’” he scoffed. “That’s what you think, huh? That I’m a loose cannon? Just killing anyone who gets in my way?”

“Tell me what you’re really like, then.”

“I’m a Spectre, Diana. I serve a corrupt, useless Council who’d rather polish their asses with the galaxy’s lips than lift a finger to actually help anybody. Meantime, _my home_ is getting crushed by the Reapers. Like it or not, I’m the one who has to try to actually _do_ something.”

“You weren’t a Spectre when you blew up Bahak, though, huh?”

He was quiet for a minute, and I think he was grinning, but it was too dark to be sure. The scars on his cheek seemed to shift, though.

“Sure I was. Once you get the title, you’re a Spectre for life. It’s your actions that define you: was I defending the galaxy at Bahak? Then I was a Spectre, title or no.”

“Seems a little easy, doesn’t it, Shepard?”

“Easy as pressing a button.”

“You don’t feel guilty about that, do you?”

“Sure I do. But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to how I’d feel if I let the Reapers come through that Relay.You know that’s why I was made a Spectre, right? Because I would do whatever was needed to get the job done. Especially with Saren on the run, they needed somebody who could _think_ like Saren. Do you think I didn’t know, from the start, the kind of demon they’d portray me as after the job was done?”

“I think you wanted the power.” It’s true, I thought that. “I think you enjoy the zero-accountability. Prove me wrong?”

“I can’t.” He sort of laughed. He closed his eyes. He hadn’t touched his whiskey. “But it’s not so simple—I hate it that it’s not—but it isn’t. I knew what was going to happen to me in the public eye. Knew humanity’s first vanguard in the galactic community was also going to become humanity’s greatest monster. Thank god for the Reapers. I’ll probably be remembered a hero.

“But I did it anyway. Because it’s what needed to be done. Do you know what that’s like, Diana? Knowing _immediately_ what needs to be done, seeing all the ways it could get fucked up in the mix, having to do it anyway? It’s a skill. You start to live your life like that, and then it’s who you are. It’s all you can do. And, god help me, you start to _like_ it. On the days it doesn’t bore you, anyway, it’s what you wake up for.”

“If all you play growing up is a cup and ball, you start to think a cup and ball is the best toy ever.”

“Mhm. It sneaks up on you, Diana. Grows inside you until it changes you. Making the hard choices other people can’t see, but _feel_. They _feel_ you—the need for you. Makes you feel like you can take on the world.”

“Sounds a little like you’re in love with the job, Shepard.”

He opened his eyes, then.

“…it is a little like love.” He spoke softly. “You don’t even have to think about it, anymore. It’s in the body. Can’t help it, after a while. Like it, hate it, bored with it: you’re stuck with it. And the universe needs it.”

At this point, he scooted across the couch to me, put a hand on my thigh.

“I don’t think so, Commander. You forget, I was there on the Citadel, docking bay D24? I was there when the Normandy docked. Saw the look on your face when they carted Major Alenko off to Huerta.” May I never drink again if Commander Shepard does not have the most incredible poker face I’ve ever seen. “And once around the block with you was fun. But you practically sheered the hull in half turning us around to go back to the Citadel this morning, and I’m _betting_ Kaidan’s awake. So do you want to tell me about Kaidan?”

“No, I don’t want to talk about Kaidan.”

I knew he’d say that, I suppose. But with love, the subject just sort of bubbles up around everything you’re saying: all the worries, all the hopes, all that distilled humanity. The conversation went on a little longer, we finished our drinks, I left. The war went on a long time. We interviewed, we talked. I was always the ‘journalist’ in the halls, by the end of the war, the job was ‘in the body’ for me.

The names are familiar, I’m sure, and everyone knows all about John Shepard and Kaidan Alenko, now. So why is _this_ the story that sticks out in my mind, when it comes time to talk about Shepard? Why is this the one I’m saving for my ‘sexy, tell-all biography’?

I just think it’s important to know if a man’s proud of his scars or not.


	6. End of War: Infiltrator

He felt like he had nothing left.

It was harder to choose when to exhale than to inhale.

Exhale, squeeze.

Headshot.

Shepard had popped the thermal clip from his sniper rifle and taken another from the pile on his left. Waiting for a meeting with Council had always made him frustrated: he should’ve been out their rallying forces against the Reapers. Instead he’d been sitting on his hands in the Citadel embassy waiting to be asked another special favor from the Council that had ignored him the last two years. So he came to the Spectre firing range.

Exhale, squeeze.

Center of mass.

Kaidan had asked him once why he liked target practice so much. At the time, John had said it calmed him to line up a careful target on an inanimate target, sharpen his skills. There was the added benefit that he wasn’t trying to stop his target from murdering a little boy, or clawing off the face of one of his friends. No one’s life was on the line, and he could just do what he was good at.

But he had realized on the range that day that he needed to revise his answer, because there was more to it than that.

Exhale, squeeze.

Headshot.

It hadn’t calmed him to fire his rifle, not exactly. It _forced_ him to be calm. Or to show the physiological signs of calm, anyway. Soon as the scope had been put to his eye and the butt was to his shoulder, Shepard’s heart rate slowed, his muscles loosening until he was absolutely motionless. His thoughts could still be racing—Reapers ripping through Vancouver, Cerberus torturing the people who had come to Sanctuary, people going through hell in a million ways—but as long as he had something in the scope, his body would pretend it was calm. He was just that well trained.

Exhale, squeeze.

Hole through the hand.

Everything about his actions had become mechanical; even his breathing slowed, filling his lungs in such a way that didn’t rock his sights at all. He’d only had to choose the target—head, heart, hands, knee-cap—and then choose the moment to pull the trigger.

He’d choose to exhale.

Squeeze.

Center of mass.

He’d become self-conscious of it by that point—ever since Thessia, really. He’d remembered the words of one of his first instructors: it’s easier to choose to exhale than to inhale. Once you made the shot, your body would inhale automatically. Forcing the air out of your lungs was one thing, but keeping those lungs deprived of oxygen for long was something more unnatural to the body. If you weren’t careful with your choices, your body would take that breath without your consent. Without your choice.

Exhale, squeeze.

Knee-cap.

Killing Reapers had put him in a state of physiological serenity: choosing to exhale himself against the enemy. System to system, planet by planet, pushing everything he had out of his lungs. Just expecting that everything would come back in when he had finished. If he could ever ‘finish’ this war.

He had sat on the range and tried to hold his breath as long as he could, until he felt his lungs burning, his muscles tensing and twitching and screaming for oxygen.

When he had inhaled, it felt like it was against his will.

It had been harder since he met Kaidan. Finding all the ways he’d rather be expending his breath with that man, realizing more often than not it was Kaidan that reminded him to breathe in again. To remind him that he left everything he was down on the smoldering battle field. To call him back to bed.

It was easier to choose to exhale than inhale.

But it had been a war of hard choices.

He felt like he had nothing left.

His lungs didn’t even burn the way they had back on the range, as if they’d forgotten their purpose. And so, lying beneath the smoking rubble of the exploded Crucible, Shepard made a choice:

Inhale


	7. Post-War: Engineer

“That converter isn’t going to work,” Thomas, the teen engineer assigned to Shepard’s work detail, frowned as Shepard hoisted the converter into place. He was waving his flickering, ancient omni-tool over the part. “It doesn’t have a high enough output conversion!”

Shepard smiled. Tank-top drenched with sweat, so covered in ash and mech lubricant, more scars than fingers and toes: he was practically unrecognizable. And, in fact, no one on this particular work detail had recognized the great ‘Commander Shepard’ volunteering in the relief effort, not even Thomas, who had been following around the real-live-Alliance-trained-field-engineer like a puppy all week.

“Sure it does,” he chuckled, talking through the spanner he gripped in his mouth, “You bypass the regulator inverters, you decouple the out-flow sensors from the _main_ unit through the _aux_ unit, and we’ll have this thing running by end of shift!”

“…that makes sense.”

And it did, Shepard had made sure of that. Plenty in life hadn’t made sense, the last few years.

Shepard hadn’t spent this much time working on _anything_ engineering related since Akuze. Stuck with a headlamp in the middle of the night repairing the Grizzly that had sputtered and died a half-klick outside the patrol perimeter when his team was wiped out—roars and screams in the distance. The lone engineer, the only survivor, piecing together the shattered remains of the transceiver to catch the attention of an Alliance scout patrol…

Everything had changed after that. He was promoted. Named XO of the Normandy. First human Spectre. “Commander Shepard.”

Still, on distant and deserted planets, he diverted course away from the merc base to check on the wavering signal of a fallen probe– _again_. Pushing Garrus out of the way of the crumpled hunk to begin decrypting the probe’s crash data. Humming to himself while Wrex groaned and grumbled and urged him to “leave the damn thing and let’s go get those mercs!” He would quietly reply that they had time, try not to let the contentment and quiet joy come through in his tone as he slowly found the series of connections which would allow him to ‘solve’ the probe.

There wasn’t time after that: not once Cerberus brought him back. Not once the Reapers invaded. He was diplomat Shepard and politician Shepard and warrior Shepard.

As he stood, body broken, before the most complex machine in the galaxy, he had tried… he really had. Destroy the Reapers, and the geth, and EDI. Take control of the Reapers and hope his consciousness was enough to turn the tide of eons. Give himself over as the blueprint for synthesis between organics and synthetics. They were terrible options, all of them. There had to be a work-around. There was always a work-around. But he couldn’t even raise the arm that had his omni-tool. Couldn’t scan the machine before him. There was no time. People were dying. There was no time to be engineer, or politican, or diplomat.

If there was one thing his Alliance training had taught him, it was that things _made sense_ , there was always a work-around for any problem. But there wasn’t now. The Reapers did that: they threw things out of balance, they took away hope, they took away free choice, they eliminated any chance for a work-around.

Shepard thought with his gun that day.

So now, anonymous in Vancouver, repairing anything and everything the exhausted lieutenant threw his way: this was what winning the war meant. Everything had a work-around, again.

At least, that’s what he’d been teaching Thomas.

“Hey, what kind of omni-tool is that?” The teen craned his neck whil Shepard scanned the output on the newly repaired generator. “I’ve been meaning to ask you…”

“It’s a Savant.”

“Holy shit! Th—That’s nuts! Those are so expensive!” he slapped his forehead. “Who _are_ you, man! Where did you even get that thing?”

“It’s a long story,” Shepard smiled lightly. “Alright, take a look at this: you see how these connections are stripped? Well, ideally we would replace these, but if push comes to shove, there’s always a way to work-around the problem by…


	8. Future: Sentinel

‘Time heals all wounds’ is a maxim Shepard could never really get behind. By turns, the last fifteen years since the end of the war had had their ups and downs. Some mornings he would wake up in Kaidan’s arms and everything in life seemed to fit together as neat as Kaidan’s body spooned up behind him. Some nights he lay in bed, a shooting pain through his bad leg keeping him from sleep, with nothing but nightmares waiting for him there anyway.

But that was the way the world worked, and when people called him ‘hero,’ it felt ridiculous.

“Look at this,” Kaidan waved Shepard over and he joined his husband on the couch. “I just saw spam for this ad and take a look.” He handed the data pad to Shepard.

“’Armax Arsenal tech armor is now the most stable model in the galaxy,’” Shepard read aloud. He scanned ahead on the page and frowned. “It doesn’t detonate anymore?”

“Nope. Doesn’t detonate when it’s breached and can’t be detonated manually.”

“Well, I mean, you can probably—“

“—yeah, obviously someone’s gonna find a way—“

“—as if the people who use it aren’t already—“

“—Of course.”

“Of course.”

They had a good laugh that: ‘stable’ tech armor. Of course Kaidan would notice something like that. Shepard had never much been one to consider the big picture of things, or the little idiosyncrasies of their particular history. That’s part of what he loved about Kaidan and the man he’d become from learning to thin like Kaidan thought:

How safe had the universe gotten where people were creating tech armor that couldn’t immediately be detonated to kill or stagger enemies at close range? Weapons and armor being designed for people who would never have to worry about shaking off a husk.

Armor had to be a weapon, too.

On the battlefield, Shepard was an equalizing factor: overload an enemy’s shields to make them vulnerable. Healing squadmates to bring them back up to fighting readiness. Remove the advantage of enemy cover with a well placed biotic pull. But everything was only equal in its own frame of reference, of course. Stripping an enemy of its advantage just meant that your own advantages got the better of them.

As a jack of all trades, master of none, it came down to choosing what the best use of your time was: cripple the enemy or buff your squad. Hold the line with the tech armor or detonate it. It was never much of a choice, you did whatever was more likely to tip the scales in your favor. Every choice to heal crippled someone else, and vice versa.

Balance. Which of course was the illusion. The universe had its own balance, or that’s how it felt. Crippling one wave of enemies didn’t win the battle. One battle didn’t win the war.

Shepard was no hero: he’d made the decisions he could to tip every moment in his favor with whatever reference he had. And as time went by, he watched those choices play out. Defeating the Reapers hadn’t put an end to political greed. Choosing to have his bad leg amputated for a new synthetic didn’t mean he could walk like he had before the war. Marrying Kaidan didn’t mean they didn’t still argue.

The scales tipped back and forth.

But it was hard to deny that the war—that terrible war—was really truly over. It was hard to ignore that he was alive, and Kaidan was by his side. And even the tech armor only needed to be one thing, these days.

“You looking to buy some new tech armor, Kay?” he asked with a grin.

“I’ve never even worn the stuff, and you know it.” Kaidan rolled his eyes.

Sometimes Shepard forgot that Kaidan was a sentinel too, faced with the same choices. Kaidan was his counter-balance: Kaidan could heal their friends when Shepard needed to cripple their enemies. Kaidan could be armor when Shepard needed to explode.

Balance. Such as it was, from his point of reference. But it had taken a long time to be able to see his life from this high up, and to see the way his choices had led him here.

So, maybe for today, Shepard could believe that time healed all wounds. And Kaidan wondered what prompted Shepard to rest his head on his lap like he had when he was younger and fall blissfully asleep.


	9. Settling Down: Spacer

Shepard had just slipped into his stay-at-home clothes—toweling his hair off once again and hanging the towel back next to Kaidan’s in the bathroom—when the vid-com went off in the living room.

“John,” Hannah Shepard smiled from the large screen, “You look comfortable. I’m going to need to get used to this.”

Shepard grinned and ran his hands through his damp, messy hair, but collapsed onto the couch as if to emphasize the point. His mother was flanked by a background of stars, and he knew she was in her office on the _SSV Hamburg:_ her new command.

“I know, I need a haircut.”

“That’s not what I meant at all,” there was a sparkle in her eyes, “Anyway, where is that husband of yours? I wrote him a letter but I wanted to congratulate him on the promotion in person.”

“He’s out right now. You should try him on his omni-tool.”

“No,” she shook her head, incredulous, “Hasn’t seen me since the wedding. That would be weird…”

“Mom,” Shepard leaned forward. “He likes you. Kaidan’s a big family-man. It would make his day to hear from you.”

“Mm,” Hannah smirked at her son over the lip of the tea-cup she raised to her lips. “Well he is _your_ husband, so maybe you’d know.”

John laughed at the wink she gave him.

“I like to think so.” He absentmindedly was attempting to smooth his hair and brush the curling bangs off his forehead.

“Anyway, I’m calling because I need to do something with Grandma’s old house in Sao Paulo.” She sighed, “Now, I know you don’t want it—problem with raising a kid in space, he can’t appreciate the feel of good solid earth under his feet—but I wanted to offer one more time before I put it on the market.”

“You were going to retire there…”

“Well,” she smiled, “You may have beaten me to retirement, but… well, after visiting Eden Prime, I think I’d like to settle down there when I leave the service.”

“Hmm…”

“I know,” she held up a hand, “Nothing but bad memories for you. But thanks to you, it’s a beautiful settlement again. I hope you two will still visit?”

“Of course.”

“So. I’m barking up the wrong tree, but the house in Sao Paulo: I can have it up on the market by the end of the day, or I can hold off on the off-chance you want it.”

Shepard sat for a long time, stared out the window at the neon of the Silver Sun Strip. He had visited the Sao Paulo house a few times as a child, always hated it. The sludgy feel of a full standard G, the wind, the way the air smelled like the river, the way the buildings downtown loomed over you.

But when he got back from planet-side mission the past few years, it wasn’t the recycled air and the .95G that felt like a welcome-home to him. It was the smell of Kaidan’s aftershave in the bathroom, his hoody slung over the chair by the fireplace to keep it warm, waking up in the middle of the night and accidentally slipping into Kaidan’s shoes instead of his own. He figured he could probably enjoy that just as much anywhere as here.

“Kaidan might…” he cleared his throat, “We might consider it. I’ll talk to Kaidan about it. I think he might be getting sick of living in space.”

Hannah quirked an eyebrow.

“Think you could live planet-side?”

“I’ve seen a lot of space,” he smiled, a touch of bitterness weighing down his brow. “I’m more focused on building a life with Kaidan these days. Doesn’t matter where.”

“Well, let me know,” Hannah bit her lip, obviously suppressing her emotion. “I’ll keep it off the market till I hear from the two of you.”

“Sounds good, mom.”

“Alright, I’m going to get going,” she cleared her throat and breathed deeply. “Your hair looks nice like that, sweetheart. Does Kaidan like it?”

Shepard guffawed, but just shrugged.

“He just doesn’t mind.”

Hannah Shepard beamed wide, kissed her fingertips and held them up to the vidscreen. John softly tapped his fist to his heart twice, and his mother repeated the action.

“Goodbye, John.” She reached to switch off her screen before she rolled her eyes, “And, at least, send Kaidan a message or something so he knows I’m calling, just so it isn’t weird, okay?”


	10. Growing Up: Earthborn

Shepard’s hair was getting long. Not as long as it had been when he was a kid, but it called back the memory every time his bangs fell out of place and tickled his forehead. He could remember running with the Reds, Curtis teasing him by grabbing a handful of his hair whenever it got long enough to brush his collar. Curtis said it was bad for a fight.

“Prettyboy-Shepard!”

He could practically hear the taunt. Good-natured, surely. But it had had its effect.

These days, the memory brought a smile. It wasn’t anywhere near that long right now. In the bathroom mirror this morning, Shepard had groaned through a mouthful of toothpaste at the way his hair stuck up in every direction.

“I need to get this cut.” He spit out the toothpaste, rinsing the toothbrush with a vengeance. “Enough is enough.”

“I kind of like it,” Kaidan was posed like any marble David by the old masters, coy smile and comb in hand, pajama pants and graying temples, bare chest and bedhead with a towel slung over his shoulder like a Shepard’s sling. “I’m _really_ getting used to seeing you with long hair, Shepard.”

Kaidan’s hand was soft against the small of his back, and Shepard rolled his eyes. He loved Kaidan’s bedhead, and he wondered if the feeling was mutual…

So this afternoon while Kaidan was out, instead of buzzing the locks away, Shepard put down the trimmer and picked up Kaidan’s hair-wax.

Prettyboy-Shepard. Dark hair waxed to a sheen and coiffed. He couldn’t believe he looked good, but he’d leave that up to Kaidan.

“Bad for a fight!” Curtis sneered in his memory. He wasn’t getting in fights anymore.

He felt silly spending so much time on his hair—and secretly—but there wasn’t much else to do. Kaidan had left a holo-program out for him, and Shepard had been avoiding it every way he knew how. But it was time to take a look.

It was a holographic map of the Earth.

“You saved it,” Kaidan had kissed the words into his shoulder, “might as well get to know it a little bit. Then, once everything’s rebuilt, we get to enjoy it.”

Shepard could still recall the back-alleys and warehouses and penthouses of his city like the back of his hand; but honestly, he knew his way around Hawking Eta better than he knew the geography of his homeworld. It wasn’t home to him, and hadn’t ever been. 

His city was a cage-match he was born into, and Rio might as well have been another world, for how little he saw of it on leave from the Villa. London? London was a drop-zone. A graveyard. Vancouver? That was Kaidan’s city, so he’d learn it when the time came. Paris? He’d heard of Paris, was shocked to find it so close to London…

The hours passed like that: Shepard brushing his bangs off his forehead, scrolling through the holo, zooming in on cities that had been leveled to rubble, mountain ranges, farming communities, deserts, harbors…

It was… a beautiful world. All the ways its people made it beautiful, all the ways it made its people beautiful. He had a cold sense of fear—far too late—that it needed to be protected, defended. That it was fragile.

Not as it had been before: a strategic position on a map, but something too wonderful and unique to be tested in the fires it had just come through. The Reapers were gone, and yet… Shepard wondered if the damage hadn’t been done.

“Wow,” Kaidan had come in quietly behind him, ran his fingers gently through Shepard’s hair. “This… looks really, _really_ , nice.” He slid onto the sofa between Shepard and the arm rest, and kissed Shepard in the light of the holographic globe as if the whole world really were watching.

It left Shepard a little breathless, burying his face in the warmth of Kaidan’s neck while his husband held him close.

“Bad for fighting…” Shepard mumbled.

“You don’t need to fight anymore.”

Kaidan switched off the hologram.


	11. Home: Colonist

Shepard pushed the last tulip bulb into the earth and sat back on his heels. Even though the weather was cooling down, there was a fine sheen of sweat across his brow. He knew when he ran his hands through his hair that he be combing the soil on his fingers in, but he didn’t really mind.

They had cleared out an old rhubarb patch that had dominated the center of the garden, and Shepard had spent the last few days transforming it into a flower garden—just like the kind his mother always maintained. Tulips, her favorite. They would be ready to bloom just in time for her birthday.

“I’m all done over here, Kaidan,” he called out to his husband, further down in the garden pruning the fruit trees. “How’s it coming?”

“Nope,” Kaidan chuckled. “You might as well come keep me company though, unless you wanted to go get supper started.”

Shepard joined him, sitting against the back garden fence while Kaidan made quick work of the last few branches. Gardening had helped Shepard’s tremors, but for the hands that used to wield a rifle like a scalpel, working the pruning shears was nearly impossible.

“You’ve got some mulch in your hair,” Kaidan snorted. Shepard chuckled.

“That’s how I know I did a good days work.”

His hair was longer, these days. He hadn’t worn it this long since he was 16. The girls on Mindoir used to tease him about it in the way that his mother always said meant they were jealous their hair wasn’t half as nice. It felt right to have it long again.

When he closed his eyes and felt the earth on his hands drying to crumbling bits in the wind, sweat-damp bangs against his forehead, and the crisp of fall in the air: he could almost believe he was back on Mindoir. But then he would catch the scent of the fir trees down by the road, Kaidan would speak and shake him from his reverie. He hadn’t just finished planting the crops in spring, he was planting a flowerbed in autumn on the Alenko orchard.

He’d been a farmer, once. There was something simple about returning to the soil, showing Kaidan the fastest way to lay out their three-sisters garden. Kaidan in turn teaching him all about fruit trees. He had been invited back to Mindoir by the colonial government, of course. Nobody expected him to plant, of course.

But Mindoir wasn’t the same since the raid. Earth wasn’t the same either, since the war, but the orchard had been untouched.

“What’re you looking at?” Shepard grinned. Kaidan had missed the leaf-scar, staring through the branches at Shepard dozing against the fence.

“I _really_ like your hair like that.” His voice was that low and private tone he had only used on the Normandy in dark corners and stolen moments. “Took me a little bit to get used to, but now I like it.”

He’d shaved it after the slaving raids—the colonists controlled by the batarians all had a wide white gash of a scar on the back of their heads from the controller implant. Thick hair hid the scar. Shepard vowed he would wear his hair buzzed for the rest of his life: proof no one was controlling him.

It was his signature, it was the face on the seal of the colony. But that wasn’t him anymore. He couldn’t be ‘Commander Shepard’ anymore, nor could he be that boisterous farm-kid of sixteen. He was something else, now. It was hard to put his finger on.

He was happy. He was home.

**Author's Note:**

> Was nervous about posting this because it's potentially disjointed. I hope you liked it, anyway, and found it to be entertaining at very least!


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